Posted
by
samzenpus
on Sunday April 14, 2013 @06:10PM
from the stay-in-school dept.

First time accepted submitter murkwood7 writes with news about states looking for an alternative to GED tests because of cost constraints. "Several dozen states are looking for an alternative to the GED high school equivalency test because of concerns that a new version coming out next year is more costly and will no longer be offered in a pencil and paper format.
The responsibility for issuing high school equivalency certificates or diplomas rests with states, and they've relied on the General Education Development exam since soon after the test was created to help returning World War II veterans.
But now 40 states and the District of Columbia are participating in a working group that's considering what's available besides the GED, and two test makers are hawking new exams."

...does this mean that I'll finally be able to take the damn thing online?! I've been meaning to take it for years (I was homeschooled) but I've never been able to find time around my job to go to the classes.

Thank you for replying to this with actual useful information rather than either a blatant troll or a defense. This is actually useful, and pretty much what I'd expected.

It seems stupid that I can take college courses online, but not the GED tests. As of the last time I looked into it, it did require more than one appointment, which is part of what makes it so damned inconvenient for me.

If you able to find a GED test center that opens more than 8 hours a day, you can technically schedule ALL FIVE PARTS into one session. You will be going some 400+ minutes marathon without a lunch break.

They were definitely timed tests 20 years ago where I am. It was two 4 hour days broken up into four 2 hour tests. It was the kind of stuff easily breezed through (30 minutes and done for each test) by anyone with a good grasp of english that is also comfortable with long division.

Or it means that you couldn't keep going to school because you had to support your family or that your family had issues that you had to escape (see, crime, poverty).
One of my very good friends dropped out of high school, got his GED, attended college, and graduated with degrees in both electrical engineering and computer engineering. He also maintained a 3.9 GPA (only one class ever gave him less than a 4.0). Now, he's a very smart guy, mind you, but it just goes to show that not everyone out there getting a GED is meth-snorting, glue-sniffing trash.
Try having a little compassion.

There are many of us that have never used drugs that have taken the GED exam, myself included. During high school both my father, and my younger sister died. And my mother decided that I moving to follow my grandparents was a good idea, and my credits transferred for half what they were worth at the previous school. so as a junior I credit wise I looked like a freshman. (since half credits were rounded down) I had never used any drugs that were not prescribed to me or came over the counter. (and no I did not modify those) my GPA did suffer due to everything I was going through, but even then I was never a straight A student. So, I took the GED exam which at that time was weighted so that only 25% of high school graduates could pass it. I passed it on my first try

I was stuck in a dead end job for many years, but I'm finally back in school. Currently have completed an EE minor, am one class away from a math minor as well, and I am working on completing my senior year for a CS major..

Who are you to say what someone else needs? Especially, if you don't know their life. The details I placed in this post are just a fraction of the stories and difficulties I have faced. If you think you know him well enough to state "It's a big cluebat across the side of his head that he needs." then maybe he knows you well enough to state the same, or possibly worse.

No one is a "dumb fuck" merely because they drop out of school. Public schools in the US are, I believe, absolutely abysmal. It is possible to drop out and self-educate or be home schooled, and frankly, I think either of those things are better choices for individuals who even slightly care about their education.

The last straw was when an English teacher dedicated her whole damned class for giving a lecture on "Idolaters and Sodomites"

Wait, WHAT? It's sadly common to be persecuted for being gay in high school, but you say a public school teacher taught a class excoriating one of your children as an idolater for being Catholic? I'm not doubting you, but this just sounds a little too over the top to be true in my experience. Were there really no other Catholics in the entire school who were offended by this? Catholics are - even if not locally - a nationally pretty well connected bunch politically and I can't imagine something like this no

I won't name the name of the school as I sometimes do work for another school in the area and if shit was to start up again it could cost me some work and might cost the assistant principle his job and I actually felt sorry for him, he was a nice guy, wasn't his fault he wasn't allowed to fire her because she had tenure. All I will say is its in AR right smack dab in the middle of the bible belt and talking to others whose kids ended up there later? well lets just say the local private schools just LOVE the

It wouldn't shock me.. I once had a social studies teacher who spent a lot of his time either trying to convince us that the teacher's union is always right or that my province should split from Canada and join with Washington, Oregon and California to form a new country called "Cascadia". Throw in a Chemistry teacher who had problems with anyone not an atheist or vegetarian, a health teacher who blamed men for everything wrong in this world and I got the idea very quickly that teachers often have the view

there are a hell of a lot of people who quit public school NOT because they don't want to learn but because the school is a hellhole and the parents can't afford to move.

I grew up in a mid-sized city that had been steadily losing its factory's from the 60's to the 80's, so child population was crashing in the 80's and every few years they would close a school down, always one of the better schools because busing student out of the inner city was cost prohibitive. They closed the local middle school the year I entered 6th grade and the school they were going to bus me to was a complete shithole, so my parents decided they would drive me every day to one of the other middle

I passed my GED a few months before my class graduated so I could get the hell out of my small town and into the warm and loving arms of the Air Force. (See, you don't have to be smart to pass the GED.)

Locking a kid up in a building with poor education standards with others their own age (some of whom are bullies) isn't a very good way to have someone socialize, in my opinion. That said, there are many options available to kids who are homeschooling if they want to socialize with other people.

I think you need to examine just how true that statement really is. Consider for a moment that in the "natural" state young people would be probably following their parents around learning to hunt, gather, build, etc. The relationship of adolescents to adults would probably be very very different than your typical American high-school with a ration of 30:1.

In a usual high-school setting the students don't do much socializing with the adults either, rather the functional inter operate with them in a narrow

I started working at a young age. Since I have been gainfully employed without a diploma or GED for all but a few months (total) of that time, it has never been a priority to shell out money in order to sit in classes for several days. I'd like to just take the equivalency test online, but for some idiotic reason it's not offered.

If you don't have a diploma by age eighteen in the U.S. it means that either your parents were batshit-insane religious fundamentalists who insisted that being socialized was too evil for you

There are plenty of ways for home schooled kids to socialize if they want to, and I doubt locking people in a building where they receive an extremely poor education along with others their own age is that great of a way to have someone socialize to begin with. Also, you don't need to be religious to home school your kids, and even people who do graduate from our horrible public schools can be (and often probably are) dumb and unmotivated. Not having a degree doesn't mean you're dumb or unmotivated; it coul

I dropped out of high school in 1983. I was being heavily harassed for being openly gay. I could take it no longer.

I took my GED and passed it easily on the first try. Then I worked my ass off, largely financed my own education, and eventually got a PhD from one of the Ivy League universities. Now I have a successful career.

If the option of the GED hadn't been there for me, I would have been at a dead end.

Congratulations on having been an exceptionally bright and ambitious kid. However, your advice is approximately as useful to the 99.9% of humanity who don't share your particular combination of brilliance, cojones, and luck as saying "high school isn't needed; just win the lottery instead."

That's a great false dilemma, but it isn't true.
Those preaching universal schooling are ignorant to think that most will grow up to be doctors or computer scientists.Who's going to make your Quarter Pounder, an Art History Major? Do you need to go to high school to be a mechanic, a plumber, or a contract worker?

I'd rather support trade schools or apprenticeships in lieu of high school: it might just make us a better society by not wasting everyone's time & money.

Let's set aside the fact that your response of "you don't need education because you're too stupid" is a complete non sequitur to the above argument about "you don't need education because you're already too damn smart," and focus on your point.

Some day, I'd like to live in a democracy, which means that *everyone* has the job of citizenship. That means every burger flipper should absolutely know way more about history, art, literature, mathematics, science, music, agriculture, and philosophy than they need

I had a high school teacher that completed a masters degree before getting his GED. He taught economics in high school, and you are required to have a HS diploma or equivalent. So he got his master's degree first, then went back for a GED so he could teach.

When I went to college, a HS diploma or equivelent was required. There was no allowance for "or by petition" except for getting into community college.

I did online courses to obtain my degree 5 years ago and they never even asked if I had a high school diploma. I simply sent them my earlier college transcripts and started classes.

I have a friend or two with a degree from UPhoenix. They will take anyone with a pulse. They meet

Where I live currently, they require several ass-in-seat days. Could be tests, could be classes, I'm not sure, offhand.

That assumes that the state you were homeschooled in graduates you, which in NYS at the time, was only if who you were being taught by was an accredited "education professional", as defined by them. My mother was a former primary education teacher, so I got better from her tutelage than I ever would've gotten from the state public system (just comparing what I learned to what my friends

Or more likely, you memorized the material and don't understand it, but you were able to pass because of poorly-designed tests. I doubt it'd be any different if you went through the entire process of getting a degree, though.

We need a college ged or some kind badges system... The cost of college is killing us

Agreed on the four-year college/university front, but community college is still pretty inexpensive. If you're applying for jobs where community college is not good enough (i.e. they want a university degree), then no "college GED" or equivalent would ever be enough for them. That's because they are using which college you went to as a lazy substitute for figuring out how smart you are, or at least viewing your four-year university degree as some form of proof that you can function for some period of time a

We need a college ged or some kind badges system... The cost of college is killing us

Agreed on the four-year college/university front, but community college is still pretty inexpensive. If you're applying for jobs where community college is not good enough (i.e. they want a university degree), then no "college GED" or equivalent would ever be enough for them. That's because they are using which college you went to as a lazy substitute for figuring out how smart you are, or at least viewing your four-year university degree as some form of proof that you can function for some period of time away from your parents without washing out, landing in rehab or otherwise proving yourself a potential job liability.

Yes some people can see the proof that you can function for some period of time away from your parents without washing out, landing in rehab or otherwise proving yourself a potential job liability. But that idea misses the fact that most community college are only 2 years, That tech schools get lumped into not an university degree and that in some classes in an university don't give all the skills needed to do a job while a tech school can in less time.

In operation since shortly after WWII wrapped up, and now Pearson steps in and the price spikes... Allow me a moment to collect myself after such an earth-shattering surprise. Does anybody know what moment of insanity and/or oversight in foundational structure allowed Pearson to get in on the action in the first place?

The issue is not necessarily price,but value. For instance the current generation of kids to have different experiences, and what needs to be tested is different, but the test can be changed for that. What can't be accommodated for is that in many surveys, what todays firm wants in an entry level employee is the ability to get to work on time, every day, the ability to do some basic reading, and the ability to be trained. These are skills that can be demonstrated through a high school diploma and not a test.

Really these changes have been going on for a while, particularly since high schools have implemented somewhat rigorous testing as a barrier to graduation. Really, 20 years ago a GED was almost superior to a high school diploma. It demonstrated actual knowledge. Not that high schools are testiing, the high school diploma is preferred in many cases. For the past ten years I have not seen many use it for jobs. In fact even 20 years ago the only time I saw it used was to gain entrance to a community college or to qualify for a promotion at an existing job.

In any case, the trend now seems to be extend high school for those who need it, try to get them into the workforce, and by hook or crook get a high school diploma. For heavily supervised work, that is enough. Anyone hired people for lightly supervised or unsupervised work is going to hire a college grad anyway. Even someone with an online degree can work semi-supervised.

The usual reason given for privatizing is the old canard "the private corporations can do this at a much lower cost"..
The real reason for privatizing is to help funnel public funds into the hands of the corporations run by the buddies of whomsoever happens to be in power at the moment, democrat or republican..
The idea of saving money helps sell privatization, but it never takes into account:

-- cost over-runs
-- no incentive to keep costs down
-- no incentive to make availability or usability easy
-- no incentive to use formats or techniques that would allow easy migration of data or processes onto other platforms in case this doesn't work out (i.e. companies have a perverse incentive to make themselves indispensable)
-- low-ball bids make you think the cost is going to be lower, but the political pal always makes sure that the corporation gets a cost plus profit contract, rather than a fixed cost contract.

The usual reason given for privatizing is the old canard "the private corporations can do this at a much lower cost"

And it's nearly always true... when there is competition.

When there's no competition, when a single private corporation is set up as a government-mandated monopoly, the result is always going to be very bad. You can make it less bad by adding a government regulatory body to provide oversight, but the result will still be less efficient than if there were true competition.

Even with competition you run into the age old problem that private companies optimize for factors that aren't efficient for government.

For a private company, firing 100 people can be a massive efficiency boost. For the government, 100 unemployed people easily ends up costing more than just employing 100 people as it has to deal with the long term consequences.

Efficiency for the government is using less imported and natural resources. Meanwhile, private companies will easily spend more on imported and natur

Oh, get out of here with your socialist nonsense. Government should be run exactly like a business. Granted, a business that tries to reduce revenue to the lowest possible level and has a board of directors that constantly talks about how terrible business is and how business never does anything which can possibly increase revenue in the future... but other than that, exactly like a business. Yeah.

But how do you have competition when you need a standard test? Either the companies have to agree to a flat specification for said test, in which case you need a regulatory body anyway, or they're selling the same product, in which case they can't improve their products. Making it government-run looks like the right thing to do in this case, even though it has its own inefficiencies, because there just can't be a functional market.

Didn't you read GPP's post? Competition! Free market! Invisible hand! Everything will be better if we get the government out of the way and let the network of innovative job-creating entrepeneurs optimize the educational testing paradigm for maximal stakeholder impact!

Yes, you never read about over bloated private companies here on Slashdot...
It is easier for private companies to shed bloat (Hey, you. You don't work here any more, get the fuck out.) vs. government, mostly because government jobs generality require management to show cause to fire someone (Joe Jackoff is bad at his job and here is the documentation to prove it).
Of course both never seem to fire the useless middle mangers when its time to drop the ax.

I don't see how that's a benefit here. If we hand over education to the private sector, and the company running your school district goes bankrupt, yay free market, but where do your kids go to school while another company extorts massive tax breaks out of your town to take over the schools?

We have a similar problem in our town. The water company is privately owned. They run the company about as well as a bunch of howler monkeys on acid; when there was a boil order for a couple weeks in 2009, the company

The usual reason given for privatizing is the old canard "the private corporations can do this at a much lower cost".

That's one of the reasons. The other is that, since the government has extraordinary powers (the ability to arbitrarily take what it wants from its citizens, imprison them, execute them), any tasks that do not require those extraordinary powers should not be performed by the government, in order to reduce the ability to abuse those powers.

Most of the problems you iterate only come about if you privatize a monopoly (indispensibility, keeping costs down, etc); monopolies are going to be problematic, regardles

I suggest you read Adam Smith's commentary on the value of publicly funded education in "The Wealth of Nations." After noting the higher "efficiencies" of privatizing education, Adam Smith still concludes that a more broadly educated public through public education (even at the expense of wasting a bit more money on less-motivated students) is ultimately for the public good. Of course, more modern free-marketeers who don't give a fuck about the public good (only maximizing profits) come to different conclusions.

After noting the higher "efficiencies" of privatizing education, Adam Smith still concludes that a more broadly educated public through public education (even at the expense of wasting a bit more money on less-motivated students) is ultimately for the public good.

The current school system in the US is a bloated government monopoly, indifferent to competing models of schooling. You pay for it through taxes whether you send your kids to public school, private school, or if you homeschool them (or even if you don't have kids at all). There are alternatives to public school in the US, but the government doesn't care. They get their money, even if you shell out for private school or quit your job to homeschool.

At the minimum, parents should receive vouchers equivalent in value to what the local public school system pays per pupil, vouchers that could be redeemed at private schools, or used for homeschooling expenses. This would put real pressure on crappy public schools to reform themselves or face starvation, unlike the misguided "No Child Left Behind Act".

The current school system in the US is a bloated government monopoly, indifferent to competing models of schooling. You pay for it through taxes whether you send your kids to public school, private school, or if you homeschool them (or even if you don't have kids at all). There are alternatives to public school in the US, but the government doesn't care. They get their money, even if you shell out for private school or quit your job to homeschool.

If I decide that a solid religious education is important for my children, there is no reason why the money I pay in taxes should go towards the public school system in my school district. That money should be going to the private school where I send my kids, but I would be prepared to split that with the public school system for services that are shared between the public and private schools. (Example: the private school where I send my kids uses the same textbooks as the public school system, and uses a n

After noting the higher "efficiencies" of privatizing education, Adam Smith still concludes that a more broadly educated public through public education (even at the expense of wasting a bit more money on less-motivated students) is ultimately for the public good.

The current school system in the US is a bloated government monopoly, indifferent to competing models of schooling. You pay for it through taxes whether you send your kids to public school, private school, or if you homeschool them (or even if you don't have kids at all). There are alternatives to public school in the US, but the government doesn't care. They get their money, even if you shell out for private school or quit your job to homeschool.

At the minimum, parents should receive vouchers equivalent in value to what the local public school system pays per pupil, vouchers that could be redeemed at private schools, or used for homeschooling expenses. This would put real pressure on crappy public schools to reform themselves or face starvation, unlike the misguided "No Child Left Behind Act".

Because private university works so well right? Very inexpensive and available to everyone who qualifies without going into massive debt. Yes, extending that down to grade school level is an excellent idea !!

I agree with you and with Adam Smith. Publicly funded education in public schools (not via vouchers), with its more open (viewable) school board system that lets you see how the decisions are arrived at and is accountable to the public in more direct ways, is a much better approach than privatization via vouchers or privatized charter schools. That's just my opinion from within the sausage grinder, since I'm currently a junior in the school system right now!

Smith was also dealing with a world in which there was mass illiteracy. Advocating the public provision of a sixth-grade education is very different from saying that we should push every single student, regardless of intellectual abilities and interests, to go to college.

Few people are too stupid to learn to read, write, and do basic arithmetic. Once you start hitting real science and math, typically in junior high/middle school, people start to fall by the wayside. At that point, we are engaged in the provision of free babysitting, not education, in an increasingly large portion of the population. This is counterproductive, because it simultaneously prevents students who don't want to be there from being able to go out and earn a living and subjects those who do want to be there to their antics.

Would I like to live in a well-educated society? Yes, of course I would. But my world - and the world of most Slashdotters - is not the world of most people. Most people aren't capable of getting a college degree from even the crappiest of schools, and the idiotic idea that every person should spend their first twenty-two years on earth in pursuit of a bachelor's degree is holding us back as a society. We spend far too much money on education, for far too little return. The fact that Adam Smith saw some low-hanging fruit to pick doesn't mean that the marginal dollar spent on education is always a net positive.

Smith's specific discussion in "Wealth of Nations" concerned university level education, not sixth grade, though the same general class of arguments apply at basically every level (the more educated the populace, to whatever level they are capable of rising to though perhaps not paying for on the private market, the better overall for society).

But though the common people cannot, in any civilised society, be so well instructed as people of some rank and fortune, the most essential parts of education, however, to read, write, and account, can be acquired at so early a period of life that the greater part even of those who are to be bred to the lowest occupations have time to acquire them before they can be employed in those occupations. For a very small expense the public can facilitate, can encourage, and can even impose upon almost the whole body of the people the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education.

Does that sound like a university education to you? Or just an elementary one? BTW, he advocates that university professors be paid directly by their students.

we need to have more trades / apprenticeship and stop pushing college for all / tech the test.

Not all people can learn in a college setting and we should not dumb down to college to have them pass we should push the people who do better in more on hands trade / tech school / apprenticeship setting.

We spend far too much money on education, for far too little return. The fact that Adam Smith saw some low-hanging fruit to pick doesn't mean that the marginal dollar spent on education is always a net positive.

A) The alternative is worse.B) Education spending is complicated by social factors that take place outside the school.

I'll never understand the people who seem to think that if the government rolls back spending, things will stay the way they are or get better.

Once you start hitting real science and math, typically in junior high/middle school, people start to fall by the wayside.

I would chalk it up to educational methodology and the one-size-fits-all pedagogy that we seem to practice when it comes to education. People have unique skills, and people learn differently.

There are some things that come easily to me, without expending any significant effort (math, language, music) but there are things that I have to struggle with (e.g. visual arts).

Those things I am good at, I learn pretty much on my own. Take math, for instance. I can very easily pick up even sophisticated topics (e.g. topological manifolds) by picking up a book and immersing myself for a few weekends. Ditto for music -- I can usually translate my musical knowledge to any musical instrument once I've established the scale and technique. I may not be very good at it (not without practice, anyway), but I will make music.

But those things that aren't my strong suit? I need a lot of practice and the freedom (not to mention time) to make the connections on my own.

Foreign languages is another one of those -- I grew up in a tri-lingual household, and I can usually pick up languages pretty easily. But I find it easier to pick it up by immersion than by reading a book or going through a course. Letting me spend two weeks immersed in a language will be significantly more productive than subjecting me to a traditional class on languages for two months.

So, in my opinion, most people perform poorly because the educational system is designed for scale and issuing rubber-stamps -- not real education. If our goal is to genuinely educate the masses, we would have an educational system that's catered to people's strengths and learning capabilities.

Of course, more modern free-marketeers who don't give a fuck about the public good (only maximizing profits) come to different conclusions.

Actually, modern "free-marketeers" believe that there should be both public and private schools and that they should compete with each other to deliver the best education at the least cost. There are various and sundry issues with this model, but I'd appreciate a link to any economist, respected or otherwise, who argues that the public education system should be completely abolished.

No, the point is not what you said. Contracts can be for a fixed amount (
fixed-price contract [wikipedia.org]) where the company has to make a good faith bid on what it will cost them, and they include their profit in their bid cost. If they perform the job with a lower cost, they get higher profit. If the job ultimately costs more, they have to eat the extra cost and perform the contract at the specified cost..
A
"cost plus profit contract bid" [wikipedia.org] allows the company to say "I am guessing that the job will cost X and you

When corporations do something bad, at least there is another organization above them to punish them.

How exactly, as a consumer, do you punish a corporation acting badly? Example: Car dealership rips you off. You go to the manufacturer, who says "Sorry, can't help, they're a private business." You complain to the dealership's parent organization, who hangs up on you. Short of filing a lawsuit (hey, look at that, government intervention), what do you do? You get fucked. Another example: BP. 1) Destr

Here's an interesting idea. What if a cash-strapped school district started giving the test to all their better students in 9th or 10th grade, so as to not have to teach them for two or three years? How hard would it be to get a quarter of the high school students to pass it a few years early?

I don't think this would be a great policy in most cases, though I'll admit that I considered taking the GED to get out of high school a year early. It could be a good option for some kids.

What a joke that would be. I suspect I could have passed that test in middle school, as could the top 25% or so of any high school. They're testing for minimal proficiency - ie that somebody performs as well as somebody who just barely managed to get a diploma. These are the sorts of students who make headlines in surveys that show that most Americans can't point out Europe on a map.

While I won't say that high school was the most efficient learning experience it could have been, I still learned quite a b

But most people seem to simply memorize quite a bit while there and don't accomplish much else. I'd say almost anyone would be better off just getting a GED if they want to have a piece of paper so badly.

Somehow rather than being impressed with the difficulty of the test I'm struck by awe for what is likely the stupidity of my fellow man. Either that or they load it up with the kinds of trivia I was forced to memorize in history class and some of my less-well-taught science classes.

Think about it, it takes 30-40 hours of prep to pass the GED test. But it takes 3,000-4,000 hours of time to graduate from regular high school. If you could really compress high-school by 100x then everybody should just get a GED and skip those four years of waste.

Obviously it doesn't work that way. Getting a GED has barely, if any, effect on long-term outcomes. As in, if you dropped out of high school you are probably just as screwed regardless of if you get a GED or not.

Sounds like you have that backwards. It was the GED requirement that held you back. So now you got a box checked on your resume, that hasn't made you any smarter or more capable. If there were no such thing as GEDs then people in your circumstance wouldn't even be expected to get one - you could have just joined the military and gone to college without that particular hoop.

Looking at this from outside the US: it looks really strange to privatize high school final exam. What could be the benefit? You have public schools with teachers on payroll, why not pick randomly 100 of them each year, ask them to write a test, then randomly pick what is your exam.

Not really. It depends on the state you live in; in my state, there was an exam you had to take in order to graduate, but it was given in 10th grade instead of at the end - didn't make much sense, except maybe to allow those who didn't pass the first time to re-take it without graduating late. So overall, I'm not aware of the US having anything similar to the GED that students take while actually in school. So there isn't anything to pull from, in that sense.

If you are applying for Federal student aid to go to college, you NEED a high school diploma or GED certificate.

Before 2012 you can get financial aid by passing the ability-to-benefit (ATB) test. Now that option is gone. ATB test, which test only English and Math skills, are very popular among the adult immigrant population who are getting a technical degree or similar. Now they will have to pass GED which means learning social science and civics among others that they will probably NEVER use.

If you are applying for Federal student aid to go to college, you NEED a high school diploma or GED certificate.

Before 2012 you can get financial aid by passing the ability-to-benefit (ATB) test. Now that option is gone. ATB test, which test only English and Math skills, are very popular among the adult immigrant population who are getting a technical degree or similar. Now they will have to pass GED which means learning social science and civics among others that they will probably NEVER use.

The social sciences and civics part of the test IS TAUGHT WITHIN THE TEST. It's like reading comprehension. Even the Science section puts forth the information you need to know then asks you about it. I know, I had to drop out of school to support myself, and got a GED. They gave us a pre-test of the GED first, to see what areas we needed to study before the test. I aced it with only a single wrong answer: I forgot a negative sign in a simple algebra problem. The instructor let me skip the bullshit "